


I'm Only A Man With A Candle To Guide Me

by RaphSieg007



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Murderers, Dark, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Sexual Themes, first phanfiction, inspired by a song, little bit of bloodplay but nothing major, no full-on smut, so it's kind of like a song-fic, what even is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 16:01:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6665098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaphSieg007/pseuds/RaphSieg007
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Go back to sleep, Phil," Dan says quietly.</p><p>He swings the book and everything goes black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Only A Man With A Candle To Guide Me

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song _Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm Of The War Drums_ by A Perfect Circle, and the title is from _Monster_ by Imagine Dragons.  
>  (First work in this fandom, so bear with me).
> 
> Okay, this has taken me two weeks to write (on and off, and mostly at school xD) and I'm still not 100% sure about it. However, I'm proud of it enough to want to post it, so that's a good thing.
> 
> I don't have a beta, so any mistakes in spelling or grammar are of my own doing.

He wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and bolts upright, panting. That dream had really been something else. He looks around, confirming where he is. The room is pitch black, just as it had been when he fell asleep, and he can hear nothing. He relaxes for a few moments; the dream had been just that - a dream, and nothing more. 

He lets out a sigh as he realises that he's not likely to be able to fall asleep again for a while. He glances at the clock. It's 4:03 in the morning; even the most nocturnal of people are usually asleep by now, and he'd been happily asleep until now. It's one of those rare nights where he actually managed to go to bed at a reasonable time, and it's just bad luck that he's woken up in the middle of the night with very little chance of once again drifting off into a state of dreams.

He pushes his duvet off himself, shivering as the cold of the room hits him, and grabs his phone, switching on the torch. Its weak power sends a meagre beam of light across the room, but it's powerful enough for him to see his way around the absolute tip that is his bedroom. Deciding he really needs to tidy it and that he'll do so at a more reasonable hour, he stumbles his way over to the chair, on which he earlier made sure to leave his hoodie in case of midnight treks through the flat.

He puts the hoodie on and quietly opens his door, not wanting to wake his flatmate. He gets the feeling that he'd probably regret it if he did that, and he'd rather not evoke any wrath directed at him right now. He makes his way from his bedroom to the lounge with a minimal amount of noise - apart from tripping over a pile of washing that he can only assume is his own and accidentally crying out in shock, that is.

The lounge is even colder than his bedroom was, and he lets out a shuddery breath when the frigid air hits his exposed skin. It feels as if a ghostly hand has wrapped itself around him and doesn't intend to let go. Rubbing his hands together to try and retain some warmth, he goes and grabs one of the dining room chairs and positions it in front of one of the windows. He is aware that he could have stayed in his bedroom if he wanted to look out of the window, but the view is different from the lounge - it's much preferable to the one from the bedroom, he thinks.

He sits and watches the night life of London - all the people still awake for whatever reason, all the people headed to work, and the occasional drunk person attempting to make their way home from the pub very unsuccessfully in their inebriated states. For some reason, the knowledge that he is not the only one still conscious in the city makes him feel better, and watching people allows him to forget the nightmare he had just had, if only for a little while.

A click from the door disturbs him from his observation, and he immediately panics. What if it's a burglar? Or a murderer? What if it's a crazy fan who has managed to find him and wants to kidnap him to do their own bidding?

The shadowy figure that makes its way into the lounge somehow seems familiar, however, and he points the torch at it.

"Phil," an easily recognisable voice whines from the general direction of the figure in the doorway. "Please get that light out of my face."

It's Dan in the doorway, squinting in the torch light, not some obsessed fan or a burglar, and Phil points the torch away from his face, sighing in relief. He doesn't know what he would have done had the intruder actually been a threat; it's not as if he could really defend himself in that situation, after all.

Dan shakes his head, chuckling. "It's only me, Phil. What are you even doing up at twenty past four in the morning?" There's a hint of something in his voice that Phil can't make out. It's not something that's usually there, and it's worrying him slightly. He chooses not to say anything about it yet; it could just be fatigue, seeing as it is almost 4:30am.

"I could ask you the same thing," Phil replies curtly. "I got up because I had a bad dream and couldn't get back to sleep. Why are _you_ up so late? I thought you were a burglar!"

Phil doesn't miss the sudden gleam in Dan's eyes as he makes his way over to the window, placing a hand on Phil's shoulder. "No need to worry, Phil - it's just me," he assures. Even through the two layers of both pyjamas and his hoodie, Phil can feel something warm and fluid on Dan's hand, and he tenses up. What exactly has Dan been doing?

Dan seems to feel Phil stiffening up and looks down at where he's not moved from his chair. In the dim light from the torch, which is still pointed away slightly to avoid blinding anyone, Dan can see the fear making itself evident in Phil's eyes. He tightens his grip on Phil's shoulder. He feels it when a flurry of goosebumps runs across Phil's skin and his body begins quaking, and he can tell it's not from the cold.

When Dan's grip on his shoulder tightens, Phil begins to shake - he's really worried now. Something about the way Dan is acting is scaring him, and he's not sure he really wants to know exactly what that is. However, that doesn't stop him from shining the torch light at Dan's clothes, and he recoils at what he sees.

Covering almost Dan's entire torso is a heavy layer of what appears to be blood. It's not just all over his torso, though; the thick, red substance is all over his arms and the hand that isn't currently resting on Phil's shoulder. It's pretty easy for Phil to assume that there's blood on his other hand, too. Strangely, it's only now that the smell hits him; the scent. Phil can only describe it as the scent of death. 

There's no other way to describe it; Dan literally smells like death. 

Phil lets out a gasp and shoves Dan away, falling in a heap on the floor in the process. He sees a smirk make its way onto Dan's face, and he scrambles up and out of the door. He practically sprints back to his bedroom, this time not tripping over the washing pile. When he turns to slam the door behind him, it turns out that Dan is directly behind him; it isn't very difficult to keep up in a flat of this size.

Phil backs into his bedroom, hands up in a gesture of surrender, staring Dan down as he slowly makes his way towards him. He backs up until his legs hit the wicker frame of his bed. He realises, all too late, that he's literally backed into a corner now. He's caught between the bed frame and the chest that has never moved from its place at the end of the bed since he put it there.

Dan switches on the bedroom light - the torch obviously isn't enough for him - and continues advancing until he's stood directly over Phil, the smirk still plaguing his face. He looks down at the now terrified Phil, then kneels down next to him. He reaches out to him, but Phil flinches away from him.

Phil is having a complete internal freak out right now. Why the hell is Dan covered in blood? _You know perfectly well why,_ reasons the sane part of his brain. 'No, I don't,' argues the more naïve part of his brain. _It's obvious he's the one who's been killing all those people you keep hearing about on the news._ 'But why?' _Who knows? Whatever the reason, it looks like you're next, Lester._

"Why?" Phil blurts out suddenly, surprising Dan. "Why are you doing this?"

Dan simply chuckles in response, raising his left arm. In the hand of that arm is a copy of their book that Dan must have picked up whilst Phil was having his mental breakdown. Phil gulps nervously, glancing fearfully between Dan's face and the book in his hand.

"Go back to sleep, Phil," Dan says quietly.

He swings the book and everything goes black.

 

***

Phil shoots upright, making himself dizzy in the process. Had it just been another dream? He steals a quick glance around his bedroom. Everything is exactly as he'd left it when he went to bed last night, including the hoodie which was still on his chair, seemingly untouched.

He rubs his eyes, confused. How can a dream have felt so vivid? He's never had a dream that vivid before. As he moves to get out of bed, he is hit with a throbbing pain in the side of his head - right where he remembers Dan hitting him last night. He reaches up a hand and gently prods the tender area, hissing as a sharp pain rushes through him from the wound. It definitely seems like the whole thing of Dan hitting him with a book has really happened.

_The book!_

He looks over to where his copy of the book usually stays on the TV stand. It's right there, and it doesn't look like it's been moved for a while. So it has to have been a dream, right? Unless Dan is just very good at covering his tracks.

Wincing as the movement causes more sharp pain to spread through his head, Phil gets out of bed and makes his way out into the hallway. The washing pile he remembers tripping over last night is still there, although upon closer inspection, most of the clothes in it are black or grey, so it's more likely to be Dan's than his. Maybe he left it there on purpose...

He tries to reason with himself. _Don't be ridiculous. He didn't know you were going to go for a midnight stroll, did he? Besides, there's still a chance that it was a dream, so let's just see how things go._

Phil makes his way into the lounge, where Dan is already sat in his sofa crease, browsing what appears to be Tumblr on his laptop. As soon as he enters the room, Phil feels too hot, as if there's a blanket around him that he can't remove. It's stuffy, and he feels like he could suffocate. After a quick glance around, Phil realises that there's a small gas fire going, which would explain the stifling air. 

Dan looks over as Phil enters the room and nods. "Morning," he greets, seeming as normal as he possibly can. _You see?_ The voice in Phil's mind snaps at him. _It's fine! Stop being so paranoid._

"Did you sleep well?" Dan asks, an expression of - well, it looks like concern, but Phil can't really tell yet, seeing as he's not completely awake yet - on his face. Phil nods and flops down on the sofa, yawning. The sudden movement causes another rush of pain through his head and he almost cries out, emitting a loud groan instead and putting a hand up to caress the tender spot.

"Are you alright?" he hears Dan ask. He looks up to see that Dan has set his laptop aside and crawled a little closer to him across the sofa. Phil, still confused about whether last night was real or a dream, doesn't want Dan to be any closer to him than necessary, and he gets back up off the sofa, groaning.

"I'm fine." He's lying through his teeth, and they both know it. "I've just got a headache, that's all." He goes into the kitchen, leaving Dan in the lounge alone. The kitchen feels pleasantly cool after the lounge, and the colder air immediately soothes some of the pain. The stuffiness of the lounge really had not helped matters, but compared to that, the kitchen is like an icepack on his head. He sighs as some relief washes over him and he opens up the cupboard containing the painkillers.

Phil grabs a strip of Paracetamol and then takes a bottle of water from the fridge. Every movement still causes the pain in his head to throb rather violently, so he wants to get rid of it as soon as possible. He almost chokes on the first tablet, even with the water, his throat seemingly not ready to swallow anything, but the second goes down without a problem. 

When Phil turns to put the glass in the sink, he jumps as he sees Dan stood in the doorway, brown eyes fixed on Phil as if he doesn't want to let him out of his sight. He still has that concerned look on his face, and it's beginning to worry Phil. It's so out of character for Dan to be this worried about him, when normally he'd probably just be pretty apathetic and tell him it's nothing to worry about.

Phil debates whether or not to go back into the lounge before deciding that he'd rather just go back to bed and try and sleep it off. That usually seems to work in situations like this, and it's not as if he's planned anything for today, so he might as well go back to bed.

He unceremoniously shoves past Dan, briefly muttering his intention to go to bed, and heads back to his bedroom. He can feel Dan's stare on his back, but he ignores it and shuts his door behind him. When he flops down onto his bed, asleep in seconds, his body's natural desire to heal taking over.

Little does he know that Dan is stood directly outside the door, listening to the steady pulse of Phil's breathing as he drifts off.

***

When Phil wakes again, he sits up slowly. He could swear he heard something - why else would he wake up? He knows full well how much of a heavy sleeper he is, so it takes a lot to wake him.

Suddenly, he hears it again, and this time he knows exactly what it is: it's a scream.

He bolts out of bed and almost rips the door off its hinges in his haste. The noise had been close - closer than it would have been had it come from the lounge - so he assumes it came from Dan's bedroom. He kicks open Dan's door, and he freezes at what he sees.

In the middle of the room - where Dan normally sits to film his videos - is one of their dining room chairs, and tied to that chair is a boy of about eighteen years old. He's quite small and skinny, and his dirty blonde hair has fallen over one of his eyes, which, if Phil's perception is correct, are a deep green colour. He isn't gagged, which would explain the scream. There are gashes that look as if they must have been excruciatingly painful all over his unclothed upper body, and standing less than a metre away from him is Dan, holding a bloody knife and wearing an expression of pure joy on his face.

Dan looks over when he hears the door open, and he grins when he sees Phil in the doorway with a look of horror and fear adorning his features. Dan laughs - a sadistic cackle that sounds vastly different from his usual fan-dubbed 'hyena laugh'.

"Hello, Phil." His voice is dangerously soft.

The boy on the chair glances fearfully at Phil and lets out a small whimper. _He probably thinks I'm an accomplice,_ Phil thinks, surprising himself with how clearly he's able to think in a situation like this. Physically, however, he's the furthest thing from calm; his legs are shaking so much he feels as if they might give out, and his breath is coming in short, sharp bursts of air that make him feel as if his lungs can't get enough oxygen.

"Dan. . ." he whispers. "What--?" There is no longer any doubt in his mind that last night actually happened - Dan did in fact come home soaked in blood, most likely having just killed another victim, and Phil can now do nothing about it.

Dan takes a step closer to the boy in the chair and draws the knife across the top of the boy's almost completely exposed thigh. The boy hisses in pain as a red welt develops on his leg and the blood begins dripping down past his knee.

Phil flinches as Dan makes the cut, and he flashes what he hopes is a sympathetic look at the boy in the chair. Dan then brings the bloody knife up in front of his face and runs a finger along the sharp edge, collecting a droplet on the end of his finger.

"There's something. . ." Dan pauses, trying to find the right word. ". . . exhilarating about running a knife along someone's skin and watching the blood rise and drip out of the wound, wouldn't you agree, Phil?"

Phil looks horrified. He shakes his head, almost in tears now. What on earth can have possessed Dan to make him act like this? Phil watches in terror as Dan makes another cut on the boy's flesh, this time in the centre of his chest. The boy cries out as the knife digs a dip crevasse into the sensitive skin and he starts to speak incoherently. The only words Phil can understand from what he says are 'please' and 'no more'. Evidently, the boy is begging for his life.

Once he's satisfied with the cut, Dan pulls the knife away and watches the blood drip from the wound down and along the boy's toned chest, looking for all the world as if he's in a trance.

Phil grits his teeth. _It's now or never. . ._ He rushes forward and manages to grab the knife from Dan's hand before the younger man even knows what's happening, and he quickly slashes the ropes binding the boy to the chair. By this time, Dan is completely aware of what's going on and watches as Phil kneels to cut the ropes around the boy's ankles - a moment of weakness, Phil realises all too late as Dan's foot connects with his face. He slumps over, groaning in pain and clutching the side of his face.

He looks up in time to see the boy get up and run as fast as he can out of the room, and Dan growls in annoyance, picking up the knife from where Phil dropped it on the floor. He chases after the boy, and all Phil can do is lie there and listen as he hears Dan slam the boy against a wall, and then a faint gargling noise. Dan just slit the boy's throat.

Never in his life has Phil felt so helpless.

A few moments later, Dan appears back in the doorway, and Phil sighs. Nothing good will come out of his efforts, especially not for himself, judging by the murderous look in Dan's eyes. Dan steps closer and crouches next to him. He pushes Phil onto his back, and with his head spinning the way it is - it's like Dan's foot is made of steel or something - Phil can't really do anything about it.

Dan positions the knife so that if Phil tries to sit up, he'll end up impaling his throat on the edge of the blade, and he sighs. There's a look of what seems to be genuine sadness in Dan's eyes, Phil notices, although it's highly likely he's just putting that on to make it seem like he's sorry for whatever he's about to do.

A tear Phil hasn't even been aware was forming slips out and down Phil's cheek, and he lets out a pathetic whimper. "A-are you going to kill me too now, Dan?" he asks softly, praying a collective prayer to any higher powers that might exist that the answer will be 'no'. Selfish as it is, Phil rather enjoys his life and would prefer it not to be over. And what would his fans think if he just suddenly died? _They'd be heartbroken. . ._

The expression on Dan's face shifts from one of sadness to one of excitement. "Oh, no, Phil," he practically purrs in Phil's ear. "Why on earth would I want you dead?" He sees Phil glance at the hallway and chuckles. "I mean, yes, you did spoil my fun with that brat, but that's no reason to kill you."

Phil gulps nervously, his throat moving dangerously close to the knife as he does so, and looks up at Dan, terrified. _If he's not going to kill me, then what--?_

Dan lets out a harsh bark of laughter. "I won't kill you, Phil, as long as you do what I say. Will you?" Phil nods, keeping his wide-eyed gaze fixed on Dan. "Good," Dan says, pulling the knife slightly further away from Phil's throat. "Now, get up. Slowly."

Phil obeys, slowly rising to his feet. His hand reaches up to gently touch the point where Dan kicked him, which was pretty close to where he'd hit him last night, too. He wouldn't be surprised if the entire right side of his face is now coming out in a bruise by now. His hand is cold, but it's quite a relief on his badly stinging cheek.

Dan does something unexpected at this point, keeping the knife pointed to Phil's throat; he leans over and gently places a kiss on the now dull red skin of Phil's cheek, as if trying to kiss it better. Phil, whilst shocked, says nothing; who knows how long Dan being nice - well, his approximation of 'nice' - might last before he goes mental again? 

"Now," Dan says once he's content in the knowledge that Phil's not going to randomly try to attack him. "Sit down on the bed." Phil does as he's told, internally questioning Dan's motives, and once he's sat on the edge of the bed, Dan gives him a surprisingly gentle push, making him fall back so he's lying on the duvet with his legs hanging off the edge of the bed. He lifts his head up just enough to watch as Dan crawls onto the bed himself, the knife in his hand a constant reminder that Phil is completely powerless.

Dan moves over so that he's straddling Phil and begins slowly lifting the hem of Phil's t-shirt, exposing his stomach. Phil is shaking slightly, although whether it's from his nerves or some fucked-up form of anticipation, he can't tell. He hisses as Dan draws the blade of the knife across the pale skin of his abdomen. The pain isn't completely unbearable, but it certainly isn't pleasant.

Dan stares, mesmerised, as a line of blood wells up in the wound, and Phil, having never been comfortable at the sight of blood, looks away from it and instead draws his gaze to Dan, whose eyes cloud over with something that Phil can only identify as lust. He watches as Dan leans over and runs his tongue along the cut, lapping up the blood in a similar fashion to the way a dog laps up water.

Phil shivers when he feels Dan's tongue on the wound. He can't figure out why Dan's suddenly acting the way he is, but if he wants to avoid making him angry, he figures he'd better just go along with it. An angry, murderous Dan with a weapon is definitely not something he feels like facing right now, thank you very much.

Dan repeats this process until Phil's midriff is covered in small cuts, and then he sits up, admiring his handiwork. Phil looks down at himself and his eyes widen in shock. He hadn't realised how many times Dan had done it until now. Dan looks eerily fascinated by the little slits in the skin, and he runs the tip of his finger along a few of them, causing Phil to hiss as the touch causes stinging pain in each of the wounds.

Dan gets off from on top of Phil and stands up, motioning for Phil to do the same. He pulls the older man closer. "You're not going to say anything about this to anyone, are you?" he whispers in Phil's ear. It's more of a statement than a question - not that Phil would have said yes even if telling someone was what he planned to do - and Phil nods in response.

Dan looks Phil up and down. "I'd suggest having a shower," he says gesturing not only to the cuts but to Phil's hair, which is messy and looks like it's in desperate need of a wash. He steps back, allowing Phil to pass him and leave the room.

Phil feels like he's in a dream; he has no idea why that just happened, and if he's honest, he's not entirely sure he really wants to know. Even after catching Dan torturing an innocent boy, he's somehow still alive, and he much prefers to keep it that way. In actual fact, it's like he's a hostage. He can't say anything to anyone - it's pretty clear how Dan will react if he does - and it's not as if he can really fight back. Dan is only slightly taller, but he's also quite a bit stronger than Phil, and much better equipped for defending himself, so Phil wouldn't have a chance should he decide to attack him.

The stinging of the cuts on his stomach has died down to a dull ache, and Phil heads to the bathroom to have a shower, wondering why the hell he ended up stumbling into this whole mess.

***

It's now been a week since the whole event happened, and Phil is no closer to finding out exactly what it is Dan wants from him. On more than one occasion this week he has had to act as a human pin cushion for Dan to fulfil his strange-- Well, he can only think of it as a kink.

However, it seems to have kept Dan content for a little while, so it's a small price that Phil doesn't mind paying. _When did I get so masochistic?_ is a question he's asked himself more than once during the week.

Now, though, Dan no longer seems content with just inflicting pain on Phil, as he has returned home from a shopping trip with not only a bag of store-bought stuff, but also an unconscious person. This time, it's a girl of around seventeen or eighteen, and she has short brown hair with a slightly blue-tinted fringe skimming above her eyes.

Dan, who appears to have been carrying her over his shoulder (although God knows how he's managed to pull that off), deposits the girl on the floor and steps over her to take the bag of shopping into the kitchen.

Phil watches from the doorway of the lounge, both intrigued and terrified by whatever Dan might plan to do. He glances at the girl, lying limply on the landing at the top of the stairs, and then Dan returns from the kitchen. "Help me with her," he says to Phil as he passes him. "She's bloody heavy." 

Not daring to argue, Phil does as he's told and picks up the girl's legs as Dan picks up her torso. They carry her into Dan's bedroom, and Dan orders Phil to get one of the dining room chairs. As Phil enters the lounge, he hears a cry from Dan's room and flinches at the sound. It looks like the girl has woken up. He specifically chooses the red chair, so that any blood that might drip on it won't be as visible.

Phil takes the chair back to Dan's room, and the girl, now with her arms and legs bound and her mouth gagged, looks between the two of them with panic-stricken eyes from where she is currently sitting on the bed. Dan chuckles and turns to Phil. "She was easy to nail," he says, a note of triumph in his voice. "She was the one who came up to me." Phil says nothing, waiting for elaboration. "She's a fan of our videos," Dan clarifies, and Phil nods in understanding.

They both look back at the girl. The knowledge that she is - or was - a fan makes Phil feel even worse about the situation. This girl has finally met two of her favourite YouTubers after God knows how long, and one of them turns out to be a fucking psychopath. The idea sends a spike of distress through Phil's system, and he turns away in shame. 

The girl seems to notice his apprehension and attempts a sympathetic expression past the gag, seemingly ignoring the fact that Dan is watching her in a way that resembles a hawk watching its prey. He quickly looks from her to Phil, and upon seeing the looks exchanged between them, he lets out a harsh bark of laughter before stepping forward and backhanding the girl on the face. The girl exhales sharply though her nose and ends up slumping over sideways on the bed, unable to stay upright due to not being able to use her arms or legs.

With minimal help from Phil, Dan manages to get the girl not only upright again but also tied to the chair in the space of about thirty seconds. He does it with a practised ease that makes Phil wonder just how long he's being doing this. The girl struggles a little against her bonds, but after a few seconds she seems to realise the futility of struggling and lets her body go slack.

Dan grins. "I love it when they're complacent," he says, picking up his knife from his desk. Phil stands as far away as he can get without actually leaving the room and just watches as Dan rips the gag off the girl's mouth. "There's no point in screaming," he hisses in the girl's ear. "No-one will come to your rescue." He throws a pointed glance at Phil as he says this, and Phil simply nods his assent. What other choice does he have, really? He couldn't save the last victim, so why would he suddenly be able to save this one? The girl gasps as her mouth is freed from the gag, and she lets out a long stream of pleading noises.

"Aww," Dan teases. "How cute; she wants us to let her go, Phil." He glances at Phil to gauge his reaction and frowns when he sees the look of distress on his face. At the frown, Phil quickly forces his lips to twist into something resembling a smile, making him look rather sadistic. He does it hoping that a less angry Dan will mean less of a rough time for his victim.

Seemingly satisfied with Phil's apparent enthusiasm, Dan turns back to the girl. She looks absolutely terrified, and she keeps looking over at Phil for some kind of reassurance. Upon seeing the looks the two are giving each other, he slaps her across the face again, his expression shifting to one of anger. "Look happy," he orders her, stepping back. She looks at him in bewilderment and his expression swiftly changes back to the smirk it had been favouring previously. "You're in the bedroom of one of your idols," he continues. "So smile a bit."

The girl attempts a smile, but in her fear, she can't quite pull it off. Dan groans in frustration, and Phil's anxiety over the situation increases another level. "Fine," Dan snaps. "I'll just have to make you smile then, won't I?"

A spike of terror shoots through Phil at these words, and he involuntarily starts shaking nervously. He has no idea exactly what 'making her smile' entails, but he knows he can definitely expect something horrific to happen. He shoots a worried glance at the girl, and upon catching his gaze, her eyes widen in horror.

"W-what are you going to do?" she stutters, clearly petrified. She eyes the knife with a scared glance, and a sadistic grin appears on Dan's face. He doesn't say anything and advances back towards her. The knife glints as he passes under the light, completing the menacing image. The girl screams as Dan grabs her face in his right hand and brings the knife up to poke her cheek in his left.

Dan chuckles softly. "Hold still," he whispers menacingly. "You ever seen _The Dark Knight_?" Without waiting for an answer, he drags the knife along the commissure of her lips, creating a laceration quite a way up her cheek that looks like an extension of the line where her lips meet. 

Phil flinches. Now the reason why Dan had asked her about _The Dark Knight_ makes sense. He's basically doing to this girl what the Joker had said his father did to him to make him smile. Phil shudders, looking away and plugging his ears with his fingers; the girl's screams make it feel like the sound is piercing its way into his brain.

Despite having his ears covered, Phil can hear when Dan makes the second cut, since the girl's screams just increase in volume. He briefly wonders whether or not anyone can hear them, but given the amount of strange noises that come from their flat normally - _Phil is not on fire 7_ is enough proof of that - their neighbours wouldn't really notice a difference between that and the sounds being emitted now.

When Dan finishes his sadistic surgery on the girl's face, he turns to Phil with a glint in his eyes. He beckons Phil closer, and Phil steps closer immediately, not wanting to make Dan mad - well, any more mad than he already appears to be. He sees the girl's cheeks, now covered in fresh blood, and Dan has stayed true to the idea of making her smile. If it weren't for the tears and the terrified eyes, the cuts would make it look like the girl is happy right now.

She's crying now, soft sobs that wrack Phil's heart with guilt. Even if he hadn't been the one holding the knife, he still feels somewhat responsible for this. The tears roll down the top of the girl's cheeks and straight into the fresh wounds, making her hiss in pain, but she can't stop crying. Her pitiful weeping echoes around the room.

As Phil makes his way over, Dan holds out the knife to him, gesturing at him to take it. Phil's eyes widen in shock. _Why the hell is Dan giving the knife to me?_ Internally he's completely freaking out. What possible reason could Dan have to give the knife to Phil instead of just slitting the poor girl's throat straight out?

As if in answer, Dan presses the knife into Phil's hand and looks him in the eyes, a smirk on his face. "You're going to kill her," he says. "Not me." As Phil goes to protest, he holds his hand up. "Well, I can't be the only one to have past crimes held against me, Phil. Say you decide to go to the police and tell them I've been the one doing the killings. There's nothing to stop them from locking me up straight away. But if I'm going down, you're sure as hell coming with me."

Phil backs away, dropping the knife on the floor. There's no way he's going to help Dan murder an innocent girl, and absolutely no reason why Dan should think he will. He shakes his head, holding up his hands as he continues backing away. "No." He briefly makes eye contact with the girl, and her eyes are pleading at him not to give in. It's pretty clear to her by this point that Phil doesn't want to be a part of this and that he's been coerced into even being here at all while Dan does this.

Then he looks back at Dan. Dan, whose chocolate-coloured eyes are filled with a kind of playfulness Phil has never seen in them before. Dan, who is telling him to commit a murder of his own so he won't be able to tell anyone about this. 

Phil keeps backing up until his back hits something. At a quick glance, he determines that he's currently backed up against the old and horrifically out-of-tune piano. Dan leans down and picks up the knife from the floor before walking slowly towards Phil. "Come on, Philly," he teases. "You know there's no way around this."

As much as Phil hates to admit it, Dan is right - there's no desirable outcome for this situation. Either he kills the girl and becomes a murderer himself, or Dan kills the girl and then, most likely, kills him too so that there's no longer the threat of being turned in. This is probably the toughest choice Phil has ever been forced to make, and will probably be the toughest one he ever will have to make. He knows that the first option is the most selfish thing he could do - taking another's life in order to spare his own - but that doesn't lessen the desire to stay alive.

Whilst Phil considers his options, Dan continues moving closer to him until he's close enough that their noses are almost touching. "Make your choice, Phil," Dan whispers, holding up the knife. There's blood all over both of his hands, and from this distance Phil can smell it. It's an almost overwhelming scent that leaves him wrinkling up his nose in an attempt to block it out. He can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, and it reminds him of the war drums he's heard in the movies - constant, unrelenting, and warning him of danger. His insides feel like they're doing backflips, and he knows it probably won't be long before he ends up throwing up what little food is still inside him in his stress.

After a few more moments of considering, Phil takes a deep breath. He hates himself more than he could ever hate anyone else on the planet, but there is no getting around it - he has made his choice. He takes the knife from Dan, who grins at him, and he walks towards the girl in the chair, a look of sorrow on his face. This is the last thing he wants to do, but he doesn't really have a choice.

As he draws closer to the girl, he feels his cheeks getting warmer and reaches up to touch one of them. His hand comes away wet, and he realises that there are tears coming from his eyes. He wipes them away furiously. _Crying won't make the situation any better now, will it?_ he angrily chastises himself.

The girl begins to struggle as he approaches, crying out in a futile attempt to be rescued. _She ought to know by now that no-one is coming to save her. . ._ Phil shakes his head slightly, trying to tell her to stop without having to use any words. She sees the gesture, but ignores it and continues struggling, intensifying her efforts when Phil stops directly in front of her.

Phil looks back at Dan with a pleading expression on his face, but Dan simply gives him a narrow-eyed stare back. Phil turns back to the girl. She's stopped struggling now, probably having realised the futility of it, and she's watching Phil with watery eyes. "I'm so sorry," Phil whispers. Before he can doubt himself, he brings the knife up and holds it next to her throat. The girl quickly cries something at him, but he can't hear her over the pounding of his heart in his ears. He slashes the knife across the front of her neck, and for a moment it looks like nothing has happened.

Then the blood wells up - _so much blood. . ._ \- and the girl is dead in a matter of seconds. Her head slumps forward as the blood drips down the curve of her neck and down past the edge of her t-shirt. The sight makes Phil feel like he's going to be sick. Shaking his head in disbelief, he drops the knife on the floor and slowly sits down on Dan's bed. _I can't believe I just did that. . ._ He just took someone's life - a crime that could have him locked up for a number of years.

He feels a dip on the bed, and when he looks up he sees that Dan has sat down next to him. He looks down again in shame. He shouldn't have done that; shouldn't have taken some innocent girl's life in order to spare his own, and yet he did it. And for some strange reason, he actually feels a lot better now, as if a weight has been lifted. He knows how screwed up that is, but he can't help it; somehow, killing an innocent girl himself has made him feel a lot better than he would have done had Dan been the one to deliver the finishing slash.

At least this way she died quickly and without too much suffering. The silence after her almost deafening screams is a definite relief on his ears, but that in no way explains why he feels this way. _It's probably the shock,_ he reasons with himself. _Shock makes different people act in different ways._ Perhaps a feeling of peaceful sedation is how he handles this kind of shock.

"How do you feel, Phil?" The voice startles him out of his thoughts, and he looks up from his intense stare at his lap. Dan is smirking again. In fact, he almost looks proud, as if killing that girl was an exam that Phil has passed with flying colours. He watches Phil intensely, waiting for an answer to his question.

Phil shrugs. He isn't quite sure how he feels at the moment. He knows he should feel guilty, knows he should feel absolutely terrible, but he can't quite muster up that feeling. It's as if the emotional part of his brain has short-circuited; he doesn't really feel anything. No guilt, no elation, no remorse, nothing. "I don't know," he answers in a soft voice.

"Look at her, Phil." At Dan's words, Phil forces himself to look at the still bleeding body of the girl. The skin that was previously a healthy colour is already going pale as her blood continues to drip out of the large gash on her neck. There's a sense of peace in the knowledge that she died quickly and mostly painlessly - she was dead within about a second of Phil slitting her throat, so she wouldn't have had time to feel any pain. "You did that," Dan's voice whispers huskily in his ear. "You killed her, just like I killed that boy and all the others."

Before Phil can say anything in reply, Dan leans over and kisses him. It's not soft, and it's certainly not sweet. The only thing to which Phil can liken it is a kiss from a snake - overpowering and venomous. However, there's a certain amount of desperation in it too, as if Dan suspects (and rightly so) that Phil might bolt at any moment. In a way, Phil's got the upper hand here. He just doesn't know if the upper hand is something worth having right now.

He pulls away, much to Dan's surprise, and shuffles back a bit. Dan instantly moves closer, as if he suddenly can't bear to be apart from Phil for even a second. He presses himself against Phil insistently, and with his hand travelling to some not-so-innocent places it takes more than a little of Phil's willpower to push him off again.

"What are you doing?" Phil asks, keeping a firm hand on Dan's chest as a kind of protective barrier. Dan seemingly ignores the question, knocking Phil's hand away and pressing closer again. It's as if a wall has been broken down inside him; in the space of about twenty seconds, Dan has gone from bloodthirsty lunatic to needy teenager, and the speed of it makes Phil feel like he's going to get whiplash.

Phil prepares to push him away again, but he doesn't get the chance as Dan quickly pushes him back down onto the bed and climbs on top of him. "Dan," Phil says warningly, even though there's no chance that Dan's going to stop when he's in this kind of state. It's pretty clear what he wants - one glance at the front of his jeans is enough for Phil to confirm that. How Dan has gotten so worked up in less than a minute is beyond him.

He guesses it's probably something to do with the killing - Dan probably gets off on watching people die, he realises, and even more so when it's Phil dealing the killing blow. That doesn't make it any less weird for Phil, however.

He half-heartedly tries to push Dan off him, but the younger man is having none of it, grinding his hips down onto Phil's with a soft moan.

"Dan. . ." Phil's voice lacks the conviction it needs to even get remotely close to being able to get through to Dan, and he's not sure he can muster up a tone of voice authoritative enough to do the job. He keeps telling himself that he doesn't want this, but with the way his body is responding to Dan's touches, it's difficult to convince himself of that.

Phil is shocked out of his thoughts by a stinging pain on his stomach. He looks down and sees that Dan has taken the almost forgotten knife and made a small cut just above Phil's navel, just as he's done numerous times this week. However, instead of leaning down and running his tongue along the wound as he usually does, Dan runs a finger along the cut, collecting a stream of blood on his fingertip.

Phil watches in surprise as Dan holds that finger up, making sure that none of the blood drips off it, then holds it next to Phil's face. "Taste it," he urges. Phil wants to resist, but he feels a morbid kind of curiosity about why Dan seemed to find licking his blood so appealing. He opens his mouth and lets Dan push his finger inside. The taste of his blood is, in a word, metallic, but by far not the worst thing he's ever tasted.

It's at this point, just giving in and letting Dan do what he wants, that Phil comes up with an idea. It's an idea for which he hates himself, but he has to do it. For now, though, he'll just go along with Dan's little game.

***

Phil awakens later that evening, having fallen asleep practically on top of Dan after. . . what happened earlier. He's still not entirely comfortable admitting it happened, so he chooses to just forget that everything after killing the girl actually happened. He slowly gets out of bed, careful not to wake Dan, and looks around the room. It's still light outside - how both of them had managed to fall asleep in the middle of the day, he'll never know, and the sun is streaming in through the gaps in the blinds, illuminating the body of the girl still slumped in the chair.

He feels a pang of guilt upon seeing her, but he ignores it for now. He quietly makes his way to his bedroom and quickly puts on some pants - his are still on the floor of Dan's room. He grabs his phone and takes a deep breath. He's not only about to do something for which Dan will forever hate him, but he's also condemning himself by doing this.

That won't stop him from doing it, though.

He punches in the three-digit number and presses the 'call' button. It doesn't take long before the phone is answered by a woman with a far too cheery voice. Phil steels himself for what he's about to do and opens his mouth to answer.

"Hello, police? I think my flatmate's gone insane."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! (If you got this far, that is). Comments, kudos, and bookmarks are eagerly welcomed should you feel that the fic is good enough to warrant one.
> 
> come and stalk me on tumblr!  
> http://raphlee007.tumblr.com/


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